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What would you like to know about your Universe — The fourth online poll

This poll is now closed. The most popular question was: "How does gravity work?" You can read the answer on Plus, or listen to the podcast. Thank you for taking part and don't forget to vote in the current
poll!

This is the fourth online poll in our series to celebrate the International Year of Astronomy 2009. Choose your favourite question from the list on the right, and we'll put the one that proves most popular to world-leading astronomers and cosmologists, including Astronomer Royal Martin Rees and author and cosmologist John D. Barrow. The poll will
remain open for a month and the answer will be published in a Plus article and podcast soon after. If your most burning question is not on this list, then leave a comment on this blog and we'll endeavour to include it in a future poll — there will be three more polls dotted throughout the year.

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Consumers, financial institutions, and most importantly regulators did not understand the risks being taken in the financial markets. That was one of the main causes of the current financial crisis according to the Government white paper, Reforming the financial markets, released last week. It is clear to all players in the financial market that they need to make more accurate assessments of
the risks they and others are taking. But will they be able to take the more scientific approach needed for a deeper understanding of financial risks, when they were so easily bewitched by unproven claims that you can turn financial lead into gold?

Meet the fastest mathematician on Earth

Fancy crashing through the sound barrier in a rocket propelled car that goes all the way up to 1000mph? Well, we can't give you that experience, but we can get you as close as any maths magazine ever will. Last week we interviewed Andy Green, currently the fastest man on Earth (and Oxford maths graduate), who's now gearing up to break his own land speed record in his Bloodhound SSC — a pencil
shaped car powered by a Eurofighter aircraft engine. The car is currently being simulated on super computers, exploiting the full power of computational fluid dynamics and all sorts of other bits of engineering maths, and it's just about to move into the construction phase.

You will be able to read our interview and an article on the maths that makes Bloodhound possible in the September issue of Plus, but meanwhile go and visit the Bloodhound SSC website. It tells you all there is to know about this engineering adventure, the car, and the team behind it. There's a substantial education programme associated to the
project — you can sign up for engineering and maths based teaching resources, from instructions to build your own balloon powered car to experimenting with the speed of sound. You can also sign up for an email newsletter, or follow Bloodhound on Twitter.

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Did Mahmoud Ahmadinejad really win a landslide election on the 12th of June 2009? Many believe that he didn't, but only a full election re-run scrutinised by independent observers would bring absolute certainty. With this possibility thoroughly off the cards, as the Guardian Council has made clear, some analysts have had a long and hard look at the figures released by the very government
accused of doing the rigging, to see if they reveal evidence of fraud.

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My name is R. Mansilla. I work at National Autonomous University of Mexico. After professor Mebane, we used Benford Law to test a fraud in the 2006 presidential election here in Mexico. The results could be found at:
http://www.fisica.unam.mx/octavio/